Page 61 of Jacking Jill

Benson hurried to the window, gazed up into the clear night sky. The drones weren’t visible yet, which meant they were high up and would come down at a steep angle for maximum impact. They would destroy the remaining three SUVs and anyone standing too close.

And certainly, anyone sitting inside those SUVs would be obliterated.

“If Kay Steffen survives the drone-strike, I want her alive.” Benson directed his orders to Ice Wagner, the most experienced Delta in the room—and certainly the coolest under fire. Benson spoke quietly, under his breath. He wasn’t sure how Miss IMG was listening in, whether it was through Paige’s laptop or Jack’s phone or the damn walls. His temples were throbbing as he struggled to figure out the game IMG was playing, but he was pretty damn sure it involved both Romeo Carmine and Kay Steffen dead before the sun came up.

All the more reason to bring Kay in alive.

Hell, she might be more important than ever.

Not just to lure Diego out of hiding, but perhaps to help unmask the puppeteer behind IMG.

“Two minutes to impact,” Ice said with cool precision, moving his steady gaze to Hogan, Keller, and Jack in succession. “Each of us bursts out of one of the four exits, all at the same time, just as the three drones crash into the remaining SUVs. Fire at will, taking out every male hostile. They’re all wearing vests, so head-shots only. Make them count, boys.” He glanced back at Benson. “Wait until we’ve secured the area before coming out with the women, Benson.”

“And try not to shoot us in the back,” Jack deadpanned, his eyes gleaming with the anticipatory adrenaline of imminent action. “I know it’s hard to resist the temptation, you being a professional CIA-trained backstabber. But do your best, Benson.”

Benson chuckled as Jack bumped fists with Hogan before grinning at Benson. Then Benson smiled when Jack walked over to Jill, leaned close to her ear, whispered something that Benson couldn’t hear but could feel clear as sunlight. He watched them kiss quickly, then break the embrace and head separate ways, Jack out the door with his military brothers, Jill taking her place amongst the line of Darkwater women watching from behind the bulletproof glass.

Benson stayed where he was at the back of the room, his eyes on the countdown on Paige’s screen, but his mind still churning through the shocking intervention by the IMG ghost whose motives were about as clear as the smoky air in the war-room.

Benson hacked out a cough, glancing at the smoke-obscured ventilator grills, then back at Paige’s screen. Less than a minute to impact. And maybe ten minutes worth of breathable air left in the room. This IMG ghost was sending a clear message than he or she was in control, had the power over life and death.

Benson’s life and death?

Was this someone from Benson’s past toying with him, playing the great game like a cat plays with a mouse, prolonging its agony, building up to the kill?

She manipulated this whole thing to make it so that Darkwater wipes out Romeo Carmine, Benson thought feverishly as the timer ticked down to just forty seconds, thirty-nine, thirty-eight . . .

Was killing Romeo always the plan?

Maybe, Benson thought. Or maybe she’s improvising, taking advantage of how things played out today, adapting to the vicissitudes of chance and circumstance like a true master of the great game, weighing her choices, waiting for the cards to be dealt, then perhaps suddenly deciding she’s better off with Romeo dead than alive.

Why?

It took a moment, but then something clicked in the jigsaw-like matrix of Benson’s creative mind. Something Kay Steffen had told them on that phone call which Benson was now certain was genuine, was not Kay setting them up but Kay being played herself by this IMG puppet-master or mistress.

“Romeo Carmine doesn’t have a succession plan,” Benson muttered, thinking out loud as he saw a flash of silver aluminum high in the sky above the parking-lot battlefield as the timer ticked down to twenty seconds. “His entire empire will be up for grabs if he dies suddenly. Does IMG have a dog in that fight? Are they positioning themselves to win those battles with banks and investment companies all looking to seize Romeo’s properties and assets, maybe even gain control over his connections and criminal network?”

Benson had no idea, but it tingled his almost supernatural sense of connections too random to be meaningless, too coincidental to be chance. He suspected it, but couldn’t know for sure yet.

The only thing he knew for sure right now was that this IMG ghost was entering the arena to lock horns with John Benson.

Now a terrific thrill ripped through Benson’s body, chasing away the lingering pain in his leg, invigorating him with an almost childlike excitement. Suddenly he knew those headaches would not come again, his leg would not bother him tomorrow, his faith in Darkwater’s destiny would only grow stronger, the future of his America would only get brighter as this whole thing hurtled onwards.

And as the smile broke on Benson’s well-lined face, the crashing drones broke through the dark sky, smashing into the remaining SUVs with almost perfect synchronicity, the exploding fuel tanks lighting up the night, momentarily making the entire scene look like some ancient battlefield or future apocalypse.

But of course there was no past and no future, Benson reminded himself as he strolled to the viewing gallery to watch the drama play out before him. There was only the present. Only the now.

The eternal now which made the present action the only one that counts, the last breath the only one that matters, combining opposites by spinning space and time together, making every birth also a death, every scream also a sigh, every laugh also a cry.

And so Benson cried as he stood there in the shadows, tears streaming down his cheeks and into his stubble as he wept with joy.

The joy of the game.

23

It looked like a game from where Jill stood with her face pressed up against the warm bulletproof glass overlooking the parking lot which looked like some medieval battlefield or a futuristic scene of the apocalypse.

She’d gasped as the three unmanned drones came screaming out of the sky like thunderbolts, each crashing into one of the remaining black SUVs, the vehicles exploding as the fuel in their gas tanks ignited on impact.

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